Louise Erdrich

b. 1954

Louise Erdrich is equally adept at poetry and fiction; her debut volume of verse Jacklight and her award-winning novel Love Medicine both appeared in 1984. Many of her poems are dramatic monologues, which allow her to inhabit characters from different eras and backgrounds. Born in Minnesota to a French-Ojibwa mother and German-American father, both of whom taught at an Indian school, Erdrich grew up in North Dakota near Turtle Mountain Reservation, and has credited her culture’s rich tradition of storytelling with her desire to write.